


Touch Therapy

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Seduction, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:44:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in what felt like months, John felt a smile hovering over the corner of his mouth. “You’re going to pack for me, McKay?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch Therapy

“Stop. Stop right there!”

Ordinarily the tone would be like a trumpet, a brilliant, blinding shock of sound that cut through entire rooms, laying waste to conversation and attention without mercy.

John kind of missed that. Rodney at his most stentorian meant normality.

Rodney’s hand twitched but didn’t actually lift from its place against his thigh. “Did you actually think there was a choice about this?”

Of course they had a choice. There was always a choice, and John had the marks smudged dark and indelible next to his name to prove it. “Rodney—”

“Don’t ‘Rodney’ me,” he snapped, the very lack of heat giving the words more menace. “There are choices and then there are _choices_. This is not a case of the latter, dammit, and I’m not going to let you twist this into something career-ending.”

“Rodney—”

 _“Because_ if you did that, then I’d have to follow you back to Earth permanently and get a job at a university just to support your joy-riding habit, and don’t even pretend that you don’t have one, and believe it or not, I don’t _want_ a university job. I’m a terrible teacher and I can’t publish the only things I’m interested in. So just don’t. Please.”

John’s fingers squeaked whenever they moved over the door jamb. Of all the stupid conversations to have in public—but then, it wasn’t really public, was it? The hallway was deserted and Rodney was talking quietly enough that John had to pay attention to hear him. “Fine,” he said, gut tightening at Rodney’s gusty sigh of relief. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”

“I’m so glad you’re going to finally listen to reason.” Had there been any? So many arguments had been thrown around that John wasn’t sure what ‘reason’ was anymore. “Don’t bother packing anything; I’ll take care of it.”

For the first time in what felt like months, John felt a smile hovering over the corner of his mouth. “You’re going to pack for me, McKay?”

Rodney’s face squinched tight. “Shut up and leave, Colonel, I’m a busy man.” He was smiling, too, though. Just a little. “And no. I’m going to _buy_ for you.”

That probably should’ve scared him a whole lot more. Instead, though, he almost felt... good.

* * *

_“Is this how you’re going to fulfill your required sessions?”_

_They’d replaced Heightmeyer with another woman. It seemed odd to John since, despite several initiatives, men still outnumbered women on Atlantis two to one. And men didn’t always feel comfortable telling their darkest secrets to a woman they sometimes thought about sleeping with._

_Particularly Doctor Leslie Stardish, who was pretty in a robust, healthy kind of way. She had none of Heightmeyer’s zen, none of the phlegmatic calm that used to drive John to distraction, instead looking like she was going to take off on a ten mile jog at any moment._

_“Seems like a thing,” he drawled._

_Leaning forward, Leslie—never Doctor, even in their private sessions—assessed him carefully. “I’m starting to suspect that your vocabulary is an issue here. Why don’t we go over some words that mean emotions, shall we?”_

_John was sure he’d seen nicer smiles on a Wraith._

* * *

They took military transport, finding rides with enough ease that John stopped covering his confusion and stared with open surprise. Rodney just rolled his eyes. “I’ve worked for the military almost my entire adult life, Sheppard. Why pay for commercial?”

That was true, of course, but... John glanced at the uncomfortable seats they were strapped to, automatically bracing for another jouncing round of turbulence.

“Well, yes, it’s not exactly comfortable,” Rodney conceded, “but I often carry very sensitive equipment with me and really, Sheppard, have you ever tried to bring something Ancient or Goa’ould through a metal detector? It doesn’t react half the time, true, but the half it _does_ react is like a Geiger counter next to raw uranium. Besides. This is much more efficient.”

It was, which honestly surprised John. He hadn’t been stateside for much of his career, but it was amazing how small the Air Force could be after you reached a certain rank. They’d been through three bases so far, and there had been at least a few people—per base—who’d recognized him. Twice they’d tried to make trouble, although one of them, now-Colonel Johnson, lived to make trouble for everyone; John wasn’t alone in that particular pool.

Either Rodney had done something to their papers, however, or the idea that Major Screw-up Sheppard was now a Lieutenant Colonel proved too much for them to handle. Rodney hadn’t even had to argue; he just acted smug and imperious and generally ordered confused Airmen to help with their bags, _yes, Sheppard, you can take yours, forgive me for impinging on your manliness, now can we please get to where we’re going? Thank you._

It’d been so easy.

“Stop it,” Rodney said, voice so low it was nearly baritone. “John. Stop it. It’s fine.”

John’s shoulders relaxed without him telling them to and, to hide it, he slouched more deeply into his harness. Rodney had been practically whispering, voice mixing with the basso thrum of the airplane. When the hell had John learned to listen for that voice? _Why?_

Once on the ground, the Airman who was hauling their bags—and wow, this one made Ronon seem almost average—looked to Sheppard for instructions.

His mind emptied so quickly it _rang_.

No one noticed. At least, John was pretty sure no one noticed, because Rodney was already orchestrating what seemed like half the base into scurried obedience, and John knew his expression would remain bland and attentive, perfectly military wooden, as he trailed behind. Eventually the cadence of Rodney’s voice— _no, not that, I specifically called ahead to verify so you are going to make it happen now_—filled up the barrenness and it felt okay to come out from the place behind his eyes.

Whoa.

John stopped dead, staring. “Rodney?”

“We have a long drive,” Rodney said, clipped and fast and dismissive, “and I figured you’d want to do the driving. Am I wrong?”

His chin was up, but John was too busy stumbling forward to place his hands against solid, American sheet metal painted cherry red, to reassure him.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Rodney decided after a few moments, sounding amused, and slid into the passenger seat. A little later, when John felt his body sink into that mechanical rush of an engine tweaked into growling perfection, Rodney added, “You’re such a cliché.”

Then, “Oh for—John, it’s perfectly open road, you _can_ go faster than fifty five!” and yeah, all right, so John may’ve been baiting him, but it got Rodney’s hand warm and familiar against his knee and permission to gun his Mustang as fast as she could go.

* * *

_“You do realize that everyone else, including Dr. McKay, actually takes their scheduled down time, don’t you?”_

_John didn’t roll his eyes, but only because he didn’t need that particular lecture over again. So what if eye-rolling was the purview of teenagers everywhere? Plenty of people in John’s experience never really made it out of high school, anyway. He could hold onto this without being immature. “Dr. McKay takes his ‘downtime’ by hiding in the office he normally never uses and waits for someone to need him, which they pretty much always do.”_

_“Finger-quotes, John?”_

_“Now who’s avoiding the topic at hand?”_

_“I’m not avoiding anything,” Leslie said, leaning back comfortably, her arms resting loosely against the top of the sofa. “You should know by now that your answer is far less important than the way in which you answer it. And you’re right, Dr. McKay has his own method of relaxing, but he does, usually, relax. In fact, you’re often a factor in that... ”_

_Shrugging uncomfortably, John slouched back into his chair, and wished he didn’t feel like he was mimicking. “So I make sure the guy eats. He forgets if I don’t.”_

_“John,” she said gently, “Rodney McKay does not forget to eat. Ever.”_

_Grinding his teeth, John picked and chose his words with care—he could find a non-inflammatory sentence. He could. “McKay doesn’t forget to eat, no, but man cannot live on power bars and whatever else he’s stashed back in his office, alone.” He also shouldn’t do everything by himself, because Rodney had a disconcerting habit of forgetting that people were people the longer he worked without personal interaction. “I make sure he gets proper nutrition, something both Carson and Keller ordered, as his physicians.”_

_“So that’s why you eat almost all your free meals with him? Because Rodney’s physician is worried about him?”_

_His jaw started to ache. “It’s one reason.”_

_“It’s the reason you just gave.”_

_“Then it’s an important reason.”_

_Leslie nodded, head cocked in a way that meant_ I am writing little notes on a mental notepad _. “It’s interesting that you chose an official excuse, a reason that could be explained as impersonal and merely a duty.” She had grey eyes, and when the light caught them a certain way, they turned almost clear. “John, is it so hard for you to say you enjoy his company? That you’re his friend?”_

_If John actually thought it’d work, he’d gladly say ‘yes’._

* * *

“I initially thought somewhere in the mountains,” Rodney babbled as he unpacked their clothes—neatly, and that shouldn’t have been such a shock—into the various drawers and closets scattered around the room, “since then we could ski and despite surviving both Antarctica and Siberia, I do have a certain fondness for cold, snowy regions. I’ve always suspected it’s some romantic notion left over from my childhood, but lately I think it has more to do with a desire to never wear short-sleeves again, if I can help it, and the fact that I pretty much loathe sweating.”

John was stretched out on the bed, tersely ordered there after he’d picked up a soft, slithery black shirt that he knew hadn’t belonged to either of them two days before. He was trying to ‘look pretty’, as Rodney had requested. He wasn’t sure how to go about it. Should he try to look alluring? Maybe stern and foreboding—sometimes Rodney found _that_ hotter than the sexiest poses John could work on. Not that John had ever tried to think of poses. Or work on them.

“I like skiing,” he said.

Rodney rolled his eyes—which, come to think of it, _was_ pretty juvenile—and hung a dinner jacket on the closet’s provided hangers. “I know, and if we want, there’s a place only a few hours from here. The bungalow rents ski stuff.”

John stretched out more comfortably on the bed. “So, why did you pick this place? It’s really not the mountains.”

“I wasn’t sure I would be able to sleep without waves,” Rodney said quietly, facing the closet. “I’ve had, um, trouble the last few times I was on Earth.”

Oh. “C’mere?”

“I want lunch soon,” Rodney sniped, but he went, sliding easily against John’s body so that arms and legs tangled in a familiar, happy knot. “You drive like a maniac and I didn’t take my Xanax, which means I need alcohol, Sheppard, and you are going to provide it for me.”

Pillowed on Rodney’s shoulder, John hummed something in reply, letting his eyes slide shut for the first time in he wasn’t even sure how long. They didn’t do this, normally. There were always emergencies or subordinates who walked in without asking. But they’d stolen enough moments for John to notice his heart-rate slowed whenever he did this, and his breathing reached levels that would make Teyla beam at him.

“How do you think they’re doing? Teyla and Ronon.”

“What? Fine, of course, why wouldn’t they be? Probably ecstatic that both of us are gone at the same time.”

That didn’t make much sense, not really, but ‘fine’ was probably the right answer. Teyla had looked especially warm as she’d hugged both of them goodbye. Actually, she’d been doing that a lot, hugging. It always freaked John out, but he liked it. She was small and fragile and it felt good to know she trusted him that much.

A kiss ruffled his hair. “You are so making this up to me later, Sheppard,” Rodney said, and that didn’t make sense either, but sometime before John convinced his mouth to open, he was asleep.

* * *

_“I was tortured.”_

_“You say it like it’s a commonplace occurrence.”_

_“I thought you’d read my file,” he accused, idly. “It is pretty commonplace, here. You just get used to it. Hell, this time wasn’t even so bad. I wasn’t Wraith-sucked, or kept for genetic experiments. This was your pretty basic fare, some beating, a few cuts and burns. I went through worse at school.”_

_Leslie was quiet for a long time after that. She did that, sometimes, just lapsed into silence. Rodney hated it, he told John later, always assuming that he was being baited into filling that silence, egged on into admitting something he didn’t actually want to admit. To him, silence was something to beat, to conquer. To fear._

_And Rodney was never smooth with anything except science._

_John didn’t feel the need to fill the room with prattle. He just waited, casual and comfortable while Leslie studied him._

_“Do you know what Heightmeyer’s notes are on you? I’m not supposed to tell you, of course, but since you’re now my patient, it’s at my discretion.” She waited for his nod before continuing; she always did, when she gave him a choice. “She was concerned about what she felt were increasing tendencies toward sociopathic behavior. Do you understand what that means, John?”_

_There was the flip answer, of course. The first two weeks had been full of them. Not this last week, though. “It means I can do my job.”_

_“That’s one way of looking at it. Certainly, given the challenges of living and working in this galaxy, it’s a pretty valid one.”_

_“But?”_

_“But it also means, to me, that it’s the very things you’ve come to accept as commonplace and casual that will cause problems.”_

_He thought about that. He genuinely thought about it over the next few days, one corner of his mind ticking over the problem like abacus beads pushed back and forth on a string. He thought about it through meetings, through the paperwork he tackled, since sitting around doing nothing just wasn’t an option. He thought about it as his team warily orbited him, afraid to push too hard in one direction but clearly unwilling to let him drift away on his own._

_He thought about it at night, pretending to be asleep so Rodney wouldn’t._

_He especially thought about it as he slipped from Rodney’s room that morning, aware of dry, bloodshot eyes following his every move._

_“So you’re saying,” he offered Leslie in their next session by way of greeting, “that it’s not that I was tortured, but that I’ve been tortured too much?”_

_Leslie’s smile held relief. “I think so.”_

_“You think I repress too much.”_

_Hands flat against the table, Leslie looked less like any of his commanding officers and far more like his mother, casually looking past every wall and lie he’d ever created. “Colonel Sheppard, I don’t think you actually repress anything at all. You just like to think you do.”_

* * *

The bungalow, it turned out, really was a bungalow: a resort that billed itself as a gay-friendly paradise with every possible amenity. John pushed away the brochure Rodney offered, smiling indulgently. “If you say it has everything, then it has everything.”

“Yes, but there are—okay.” A little uncertainty never waylaid Rodney for long. A lunch that really was as gourmet as John suspected it was billed as fortified them to explore the villa-like area that they were staying in for the next week. John didn’t pay much attention; content to follow Rodney around and look at whatever he was exclaiming over now. 

He didn’t really care what they did. His biggest concern—one he hadn’t noticed until his back suddenly unknotted—had been answered at lunch: Rodney doing his usual blustery speech about no citrus, anywhere, he _meant it_ , and oh yes, John would have the steak, medium, a lager that didn’t suck, and a Caesar salad with anchovy. “And we’ll be splitting the chocolate cake for dessert, and by splitting, I mean two very large pieces.”

“You realize I don’t like chocolate quite as much as you, right?” he’d drawled.

Rodney had just patted his hand, unconcerned that the sun-lit, airy restaurant was very full. “The more for me to steal, of course.”

“Does stolen cake taste different from regular cake?”

Rodney had given him the look usually reserved for particularly stupid grunts. “Yes. Duh. Now hush and drink your beer.”

Three beers, one very good steak, and nearly a whole piece of chocolate cake later, John felt full and ready to do whatever Rodney wanted. What Rodney seemed to want to do was, surprisingly, end up at the beach with the towels they’d just bought. “I thought you might like to surf, later. I actually have no idea if the surfing is good here, or not, but they have a surf shop so I’m assuming that at some point in the year it probably is.”

Normally, John wouldn’t wait to get in the water which was already bobbing with surfers. “Turn around, I’ll put that stuff on your back,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Rodney asked, abruptly giving him a hard look. “Because I could—”

“Could?” He ducked his head to avoid Rodney’s scrutiny. It made him feel like a jumble of puzzle pieces with the edges too frayed for recognition.

“I bought the medium level,” Rodney eventually said. Non-sequitur as apology was something they’d perfected over the years.

They spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing sun-block all over themselves—Rodney retaining his shirt, ludicrous pink hat, and shockingly white, zinc-covered nose, despite John’s teasing attempts to get him to go in just his new swim-trunks—and dozing comfortably on soft, yellow sands.

It was kind of amazingly nice.

On the third day, Rodney finally asked him point blank, “So was all that talk about surfing just something you did to mock us, or do you actually enjoy it?”

“I enjoy it,” he said. “Why, you wanna try it?”

Rodney had the most varied catalogue of sounds John had ever heard: this one was derision mixed with a little bit of anticipation. “No, but, uh. In the top drawer... ”

The top drawer yielded a pair of black Speedos. A very _small_ pair of black Speedos.

Rodney wasn’t quite blushing, but his cheeks were pinker than before. “I’d like to see it,” he said.

And suddenly, John really wanted to show him. Not just himself, since Rodney could see that, and had seen that, every way imaginable. No, he wanted to show Rodney what he looked like when he was doing something he enjoyed, for no other reason than he enjoyed it. Something _pure_.

He ended up spending nearly the whole day in the water. He wiped out a lot, at first. A _lot_. Rodney found it hysterical, though—at least he did after the first time when John’d taken a little too long to return to the surface—his shoulders shaking so John knew just how hard he was being laughed at.

Watching someone surf was only entertaining the first couple times, so it surprised John when Rodney stayed. He hadn’t brought a book or laptop with him and he’d never mastered the art of sleeping sitting up, so it wasn’t that, either. He was oddly attentive, sitting on the beach in his stupid pink hat, like a cross between smiling, laughing Buddha and a lifeguard, always there whenever John slid to shore or broke through blue-glazed waters.

Eventually, exhausted, John collapsed onto the beach next to him, panting and laughing at the same time. “Do you approve?”

“I would approve more if people weren’t ogling you quite so obviously,” Rodney snapped, smugly eyeing the way sand caught on John’s chest. “Did you have fun?”

“Stop pretending you’re my mother, or I’ll tell you it was _awesome, dude.”_

“Since you just did, does that mean I have to stop?” He stuck a hand out, circumventing any retaliation. “Come on, they do room service here and it’s hotter today.”

Rodney ordered lunch for them both again; John suspected Rodney was trying to fatten him up with burgers bigger than their heads. Afterwards, they stretched out on their bed and flipped channels. Both of them dozed on and off, trading the remote with a minimum of squabbling, and it seemed likely that they’d do this until the rest of the day slipped away.

“Do you wanna make out?”

It took him a moment to realize he’d asked it aloud.

Rodney looked at him without responding. He’d given John this particular look a lot, over the last few days. Never obviously and always when he thought John wasn’t looking. But it was still a lot: curious and furtive and worried. But not _worried_ , somehow. “Is that what you want to do?”

“Seems like a thing to do, being on vacation and all,” John said.

“Well, yes, but.” Rodney’s hand made an abortive swoop, trembling in mid-air for a moment. Those hands never trembled. Never. But then his mouth firmed and he closed his hand around John’s wrist, steady as granite. “You haven’t wanted to for a long time.”

* * *

_“I know this is confidential,” John ground out, “but where the hell do you get off—”_

_Leslie’s eyebrows were a ruddy blonde and they disappeared into skin tone the higher up her forehead she pushed them. “I’m sorry, John,” she interrupted. “Really. It’s not very professional for a therapist to assume things, but it is human. I’m sorry, I really had thought it was...well, open knowledge.”_

_It wasn’t the first time John had walked out of a session. It was the first time someone wasn’t sent to make him go back. At first it had been his team: Ronon or Teyla. Never McKay. Once it had been Carter. After that proved less than successful, Lorne and a security detail had been sent, threatening to publicly carry him back, no matter how much it embarrassed the hell out of them._

_That was the last time John had walked out, until now._

_Leslie didn’t request him back the next day, and for the first twenty hours or so, he’d counted that as a win. He didn’t need to go back. He was fine. And she’d crossed a god damned line that shouldn’t ever be crossed. Okay, he could grant that almost a solid week of being held captive was maybe reason for a couple therapy sessions, especially after Carter had confided in him that all SG personnel in high-risk situations—so, all of them—had been required to go as well. That made some kind of sense._

_He could even grant the idea of him slipping back into work without creating a ripple— again—was, in fact, causing ripples. The way he’d gone cold and clinically precise when someone had tried to just pat his arm was probably proof enough._

_But so what if he didn’t like people touching him, that much? And where the hell did she get off asking those kinds of questions?_

_Righteous anger lasted him through dinner and then he was storming into her office, ready to chew her out like the newest arrivals still sometimes needed—and was not at all surprised to see her look up at him and beam, like he’d finally done something right._

_It was as effective as a needle through a helium balloon._

_“Dammit,” he muttered, crumpling into the sofa. “Well, it’s not like I didn’t know I had issues.”_

_“Actually, that might be why some of your ‘issues’,” she made air-quotes just to spite him, probably, “are as deeply set as they are. I’m glad you came back, John, thank you.”_

_“I came here to yell at you,” he told her, ruefully._

_“But you still came here, voluntarily. So, thank you. Now, then, do I have your permission to discuss the subject we’d brushed on before?”_

_That, right there, was probably the reason he’d come back. Heightmeyer hadn’t asked, just manipulated him back into facing the subject, whether he wanted to or not. Leslie never did. She asked permission, and if the answer was no then she respected the boundary._

_At least until the next time._

_“No. No, you don’t.”_

_Leslie nodded, accepting the hard tone of voice without qualm. “Very well. I will tell you, however, that I do have sessions with Rodney.”_

_His skin felt tight, like he was about to break into a sweat. He hadn’t enjoyed this when it was his wife, and he definitely didn’t enjoy it now. His private life was his. And private. “So?”_

_“So, he’s requested leave for the same time you’ll be on Earth. I’m not breaking confidence,” she added, holding her hand up, “he’s already given permission for me to discuss it with you. It’s going to become common knowledge by tomorrow morning, regardless. You know he’ll make a production about leaving for so long.”_

_John didn’t even have to close his eyes and think very hard. His ears were echoing already. “So this is a warning?”_

_“More like an opportunity for you to process it now, in private, before you go back out there.”_

* * *

“Was that a problem?” John asked, carefully. “That I didn’t want to?”

“What? No, what are you— _no,”_ Rodney said honestly, because he’d never learned how to be anything but. The verbal stumbling was oddly flattering, though. “No, of course not, don’t even think that, you moron. I just don’t want to do anything—um.”

John pushed himself up onto an elbow. “You don’t want to do anything wrong, is that it? You think you have to coddle me?”

“Are you trying to be more of a moron than usual?” The lack of derision caught John up short. Rodney’s face was curious, yes, but not angry or upset. Just curious. “I don’t think I have to coddle you; where the hell did you come up with that? It’s just that... that we’re forty year old men,” he said in a rush, “and sometimes trauma makes our bodies react in ways that our minds don’t understand or, or even want and—”

“You thought I was _impotent?”_

“No! I thought—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought, come here and kiss me.”

And it was just that easy, sinking down onto Rodney to brush his mouth against one that tasted of coconut and rum, opening eagerly the moment Rodney nipped his lower lip. Rodney was warm and comfortable beneath him; cupping his face as they kissed and kissed until both their mouths were swollen and the stars had come out, dappling the blankets around them.

“I do not coddle you,” Rodney whispered a long time later, sucking a mark in the middle of John’s neck.

“Compared to being thought impotent?” John shot back. But he felt languid, like putty left under the sun to bake all day, and Rodney’s teeth made him gasp. “I’d rather you did.”

With a final nip, Rodney rolled John onto his side and snuggled up close behind. “I’ll keep that in mind. Sleep.”

Sleep wasn’t actually anywhere on John’s agenda, but Rodney curled around him worked faster than any prescription drug and he was out between one breath and the next.

Movement woke him. John took in his surroundings and then blinked. “Are you a pod-person?” he asked. It wasn’t quite seven, yet.

“No, I’m not, and go back to sleep,” Rodney said, slipping on his shoes. He’d refused to wear things that required laces on vacation. “No, seriously, go back to sleep. Really, you look so good in white. It’s entirely unfair.”

It took far too long for John to realize he meant the white comforter, tucked up around John’s chest—and by then Rodney was gone, the door closed firmly behind him.

“Huh,” he said to the ceiling. “That was weird.”

He did manage to fall back to sleep—they both were sleeping a lot—deep and dreamless. He woke around noon. Rodney still wasn’t back, yet, which was annoying but not unexpected. When Rodney got ideas he followed them to their conclusion, regardless of what was going on.

Nursing a slight headache, John ordered a light lunch and then took a long, long shower. It wasn’t that Rodney would’ve stopped him, but John tended to keep his love of showering to himself. He was just getting pruney when he heard a knock.

“Oh, perfect!” Rodney’s voice floated through the door, sounding delighted. “Yes, yes, of course I’ll sign; we’re sharing the room, aren’t we? Good. Go.” The door shut quite firmly. Was that a lock John heard? “You got tuna salad!”

What, John was supposed to get something Rodney hated? Well. Actually.

“You know,” he said, coming out of the bathroom, “I was thinking of the—”

Rodney was standing there naked. Completely naked and completely unselfconscious about it.

“Uh,” John said.

“I thought about doing this at night,” Rodney said. “I thought about finding a club, or closing the blinds no matter what time of day it was; something to hide us so it was just you and just me. But I don’t want to.” It was that same look as before, only so much more intense that John’s skin prickled, heat curling at the base of his stomach. “I want us to do this here, with the sun shining and the windows open and anybody could look in, if they really wanted to. Anybody at all.”

Then, “Drop the towel, John.”

He was shivering so hard that he didn’t have to do more than loosen the knot before it pooled at his feet.

“Because it’s still going to be just you, and just me.” This was a new voice, low and grating with sexual heat, but almost lulling, too. Gentling. John honestly wasn’t sure which was hotter: the idea that Rodney thought he needed it, or that John agreed. “It doesn’t matter if the lights are on and everybody sees. That doesn’t matter. It _never_ matters.”

The carpet was a dark brown color. John stared at it, noting the way it highlighted the reddish hue of Rodney’s skin, the pink around his feet. John studied those feet as they came closer, the weave that brushed up against a slightly bigger big toe, the nail rounded and cut short, the pinky toe that was just a little crooked, squashed into shoes that never quite fit.

“If I told you to get on your knees, what would you do?”

He’d stand there and tremble, seemed to be the answer, throat too dry to swallow around because _if_ wasn’t what he wanted right now.

“That’s what I thought.” Rodney was so close that John could feel his breath, warm and humid against his cheek. And then, oh, hands skimming over his face, sliding into his hair and angling him just right for Rodney to press tiny, gentle kisses over John’s mouth and cheeks and eyes: _hello, hi, I’ve missed you_. “I’m glad you shaved. You always look boyish when you do that.”

“What are we doing?”

Rodney pulled back to give him a long, steady look. “We’re having sex.”

John shot a desperate look to the left: the curtains shifted and danced in the breeze, exposing flashes of blue and sandy white with every lazy curl.

Rodney didn’t say anything. He didn’t defend, or explain, didn’t offer a cascade of words that would twist the subject so quickly John could only pad along and...oh.

“Yeah,” John said. “Okay.”

“Good,” and if there was relief there, neither of them would acknowledge it. “I’m going to sit on the bed, okay?”

Dubious, John nodded and let go of Rodney’s waist. Did he want John on his knees, like he’d said before? He watched Rodney walk, the way his thick, powerful thighs bunched and released, his half-hard cock bobbing in between. Would he want a blow-job? John’s mouth watered. The idea of sucking Rodney off for hours, having him lay down on the bed while John knelt on the ground between his legs, licking and sucking and god, _nursing_ for as long as he could take—

“John.” Rodney wasn’t sitting on the edge, but actually stretched out across the bed, head resting on the pillows. “Come here?”

The question didn’t make any sense. There was no reason to _ask_ him, after all. But John still moved to the foot of the bed to hover there, uncertain.

Rodney’s sigh surprised him. “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this. You are going to touch me. You’re going to do anything you want to me and I’m going to lie here and enjoy it.”

He felt like a car with a flat tire, his brain thunking in awkward circles. “You want me to touch you?”

“No,” Rodney snapped, mulishly, “I want you to—yes, fine, fine. I want you to touch me. You can do anything you want, touch me whatever way you want. You can ask me to touch you, but you have to _ask_ and I might say no.”

“What if I asked you to roll on your stomach?”

“You don’t have to _ask_ me that. You’ll just roll me, unless your hands are otherwise busy. Okay?”

It was strange for Rodney to look beseeching. Usually that meant he was trying to be selfish, except John was pretty sure there was nothing selfish about any of this. Well, other than Rodney getting to lie there and enjoy whatever John did to him.

“So you want me to touch you?” he found himself repeating. This wasn’t making sense. Normally Rodney was demanding and grabby when it came to sex and John _liked_ that. He liked it quite a bit, since when it was John’s turn to be demanding and grabby, Rodney was okay with that, too.

“No. I want you to come over here and touch me. That’s all, John, and I’m not going to say it again. The word ‘touch’ has lost all meaning. See? Touch touch touch. Means nothing.”

“Well, if you wouldn’t say it so much,” John grumbled, and grabbed one of Rodney’s waving hands, cupping it between his own. “You have to say everything so damned much.”

“Yes,” Rodney said simply. “I do.”

John looked down, watching as he dragged his fingers over the inside of Rodney’s wrist where the skin was pale and translucent. He was kneeling on the bed, he realized, but it was a distant awareness. Everything else was caught up in mapping the soft, fragile skin, the jutting wrist bones, and the trace of blue, blue, pulsing blue that knit everything together underneath. He kissed right where veins split into three branches, gentle, at first, before sucking a mark he knew would stay for days, perfect for John to reach out and brush against no matter where they were.

No one would ever know or care. No one but them.

He was cradling Rodney’s arm, now, following it towards his elbow—which always tasted salty and always, always made Rodney gasp—and biceps that were strong and powerful without ever being hard. “Is this okay?”

Rodney laughed through his groan. “Christ. What do you think?” he demanded, gesturing to his cock. His very hard, very red cock. “Stop asking stupid questions, please. You know how I can’t stand that.”

Entire planets knew that, so John stopped worrying about it and just touched. Everywhere. It was like the romance novels he’d been desperate enough to read on various tours - more of a distraction than the magazines everyone else preferred. He covered every inch of Rodney: hands sweeping over his torso just to feel Rodney breathe, delicate over the soft folds of skin at the edges of his chest, the ones Rodney hated. 

“Let me,” John urged as he kissed Rodney past the ticklish feeling, tasting the grain of his skin. Rodney eventually relaxed, humming at the open-mouthed kisses John gifted him with, faint traces of moisture gleaming silver in the summer sun. “Yeah, Rodney, yeah.” 

He sucked a collar around Rodney’s neck, ending up at the back, the prickle of hair making him fight not to sneeze, distracted by the sensation of Rodney’s spine moving under layers of skin and muscle. He bit at Rodney’s hips, his shins, even his feet, soothing each mark with a pat or a kiss before moving on to the next.

“Oh, oh, you don’t—” Rodney objected only once, shivering himself as John pressed knuckles into Rodney’s back. “That’s not—”

But John liked that, loved the way Rodney’s face went slack with relief as made the most incredible noises of affection and awe. “Shh,” he murmured, watching the way his cock dragged up and down the swell of Rodney’s ass as he moved. “I want to.”

“Really?”

He sounded _bewildered_. Not just surprised, but undone with it because he didn’t know that—that John—that _anyone_ —

When John finally stopped, his mouth felt fuzzy and swollen, and there was a mark the size of his fist in the center of Rodney’s back, mottled red and pink around the edges. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he echoed. The words burned in his throat.

“No, no,” Rodney responded and was he panting? He sounded breathless, but it could’ve been pleased. Sometimes John couldn’t tell the two apart. “No stupid questions, not ever.”

There were so many places to touch, so many ways. He rubbed his nose deep into Rodney’s belly, against muscles that quivered tight with laughter; he dragged his body up along Rodney’s torso, riding him like a boogie board, imprinting every dip and swell into his own skin, mirroring the patterns until there was nothing but sensation that built with slow, gradual pressure, a climb that clicked like a roller coaster, the dogged effort to defy gravity, defy reality until it came crashing back down so hard that John felt airborne with need, burning from the inside out as he sped back towards the ground.

“C’mon, Rodney, c’mon,” he heard himself panting. It was slurred now, barely intelligible—but Rodney really was a genius. “Please, get me—I want you to—I’m _asking_ , okay? I’m asking.”

“And I’m answering! I’m answering affirmative and if you’d stop—oh, oh, god, don’t stop, don’t stop! Just—here.”

The mechanics of it were beyond him, but somehow Rodney finally— _finally_ —slid two fingers inside of him, crooking and scissoring like he couldn’t wait any more than John could. John moaned gratefully, biting down on Rodney’s nipple even as he widened his legs in a mute plea for more. He loved Rodney’s big, square fingers, thick enough around the base that when two of them—god, _three_ , oh yes—were inside him it felt almost right. Almost enough.

He caught himself waiting for Rodney to grab his shoulders and throw him down. Belly or back, it didn’t matter so long as Rodney was looming above him and driving into him because he was ready, and—

Huh.

He had to practically somersault to detach completely, but he was feeling flexible, so it was easy to just push and arrange and then his knees were bracketing Rodney’s hips and chest, and oh, _there_ , so easy to just slide down until there was sweaty skin, scratchy curls pressed tight against his ass. Rodney made a high, keening noise and groped for John’s hands, threading their fingers together and squeezing so tightly that the tips turned white.

“Oh, _god_ ,” he whimpered when John started to move. It sounded almost like _good_.

John certainly thought it was.

It was always the fall that John loved. He’d started doing tricks and barrel rolls the moment he’d been allowed to—and a lot of times when he wasn’t—because he craved that moment when it felt like his stomach was detached from its moorings, when the entire world fell away in a rush of sensation, streaming past him as he just _was_.

That was what it felt like now: riding over Rodney’s thick cock, gripping with every part of him. Rodney was fucking him, too, using his hips and those powerful thighs against John’s back to set the tempo while John slid up and down and finally, finally there was nothing but clear blue sky around him, endless and pure and utterly alive.

“Oh, fuck,” Rodney groaned. His eyes were bright, almost feverish and he was grinning as crazily as John was—as John finally realized he was. “Fuck, yes, I wanted this so—you were so _quiet_ and all I wanted was to just shove you down in the middle of the _gate room_ and fuck you until you were loud and begging me and—”

John was at the wrong angle to lean down, so he tightened every part of himself until it started to hurt, just to watch Rodney stutter and his jaw drop down as he pulsed hot and heavy deep inside.

“And you weren’t _there_ ,” Rodney finished with a sigh. His chest was heaving, eyes half-closed from the intensity of it, and it was that image John saw, burned on the back of his eyelids as he came hard enough that he ached afterwards. “You weren’t there.”

Collapsing to one side hurt. It took effort for both of them to untangle without pulling or pinching, but eventually John could flop onto Rodney’s chest and just breathe. “Does this place do massages?” he asked, muzzy and already nearly asleep.

“Already made appointments for tomorrow,” Rodney said. “Duh.”

* * *

They had to buy a third bag. “Did you ever tell me you liked to shop?” John asked, eying the collection of things piled on the bed. Hitching military transport rides meant they weren’t stuck with weight restrictions, but at least on commercial they could always pay to make up the difference. Lost goodwill was harder to appease.

“Like half of that isn’t crap you made me buy to bring back for people.”

Abandoning packing for the moment, John went out to their small deck and slid into the chair with Rodney.

Who glared at him. “These chairs aren’t really built for two,” he snapped.

John just grinned at him, turning Rodney’s hand up so he could rest their palms together. There were bruises on both of their wrists, smears of darkness that John very much wanted to touch. His mouth tingled at the memory of creating Rodney’s. Maybe he could convince Rodney to wear civilian clothes when they went through the ’gate? At least John’s uniform had short sleeves.

“Are we ready to go back?” The question sounded like _are we finished packing and did I remember to leave the tip I’ve reminded you about four times, because occasionally I’m a giant nag?_

Actually, Rodney had asked that a few times. So if he’d meant that, he would’ve repeated it. Again.

Bracing against Rodney’s shoulder wasn’t really comfortable, but the solid heat of him underneath made up for it. “Sure.”

“Ah yes, such a hearty and heart-felt answer to my question.”

“We’re fine, McKay,” he said and it was true. He wasn’t sure what would happen when they went back to Atlantis, but he wasn’t worried about it. _“Sometimes it’s all about perspective,”_ Leslie had said and, probably unsurprisingly, she’d been right.

Rodney shifted and squirmed until he had an arm around John’s waist, getting them both more comfortable. The sun was high in the sky. “Not cool?”

“Ronon’s cool,” John quipped. “We’re fine.”


End file.
